What’s Happening to the Internet?

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Lately, Net Neutrality has been a very talked about subject online. Net Neutrality is the right to communicate freely online and access any lawful content available to you. Removing this gives more power to internet providers, and less freedom to the customers. Internet providers would be able to control what users see, the advertising shown, and how fast the connection is for certain people.

What does that actually mean for the people using the internet? It means that internet providers can have a fast connection and slow connection lane, charging you more for higher speed internet connections. The internet could be turned into a system of packages you pay for instead of paying one price to access everything. They will have the ability to block websites and censor content. They would have the capability to ask companies to pay more to have their websites to load faster, giving them more customers.

In this generation, the internet is used everywhere for everything. Social media has become a huge form of interaction, a place for people to express their opinions, and a lot of people feel safe to be themselves online. Most people aren’t willing to give that up. People are starting to stand up for what they believe in on and off line. There are multiple websites trying to “save the internet” from people who are for rolling back Net Neutrality laws, and people are peacefully protesting for what they want.

Net Neutrality was originally put in action in 2015 when the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) voted for these regulations. On December 14th 2017, the FCC voted to repeal Net Neutrality rules. Just because the vote happened, doesn’t mean you will see immediate change. Changing the way the internet works will take some time and people are still fighting for free internet.